


A New Beginning

by MonPetitTresor



Series: When Winchesters Run the World [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Chuck and Amara make up, Darkness!Dean, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, No Mary Winchester, STRONG AU, Tags Contain Spoilers, archangel!castiel, god!sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 13:24:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13881771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonPetitTresor/pseuds/MonPetitTresor
Summary: After Chuck and Amara make up, they reveal their new plans - and they're nothing like what anyone had expected.





	A New Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to my Discord Darlings, who inspired this with random comments in our chat, and then encouraged it as it grew. Thank you all so much!

This was nothing like what Dean had thought it would be. As he stood there watching God and Amara reconcile, a bomb still burning away inside his chest, the hunter could only gape. All this stress, all this drama, and it ended with a _talk_? A freaking _talk?_

The two touched, and Dean felt it as the world bloomed back to life once more, the sun brightening in the sky overhead. He shielded his eyes against the brightness of the sun compared to the darkness of just moments before.

When Dean looked back down again, Amara was just pulling her hand away from Chuck’s chest, and her smile was gentle; far gentler than anything she’d showed so far. Beside her, Chuck looked just as calm, and just as happy. In reaching out to heal him, Amara had done more than just repair Chuck’s light. The two were starting to repair _themselves_. The two turned together to face Dean, who was stunned silent over the love and power that the two were emanating. He’d felt hints of it before with each of them, but together like this? It was the most amazing thing he’d ever felt.

“I think…” Chuck paused, flashing a smile at Amara. “I think we’re just gonna go away for a while.”

Dean found himself nodding. “Hey, yeah. Family meeting. I get it.” They had a lot of time to make up for between them.

He was surprised when Chuck broke away from his sister’s side. “But first…” He came forward, seeming less like the little guy who had been staying at the bunker lately. The guy who ate bacon and apparently watched Dean’s porn collection. When he stopped in front of Dean and lifted a hand to lay it over his chest, power washed over the older Winchester, and it felt _good_. Dean swore he could feel it like warm water running through him. When it drew away, the burning in his chest was gone. Dean glanced down in surprise and then back up at Chuck, who had a crooked grin. “Better?”

Any words Dean might’ve said were caught in his throat. He wanted to say that, yeah, he felt fantastic. He wanted to say _thank you_. Instead, what ended up coming out was, “What about us? About earth?”

“Earth’ll be fine. It’s got you. And Sam.”

Dean could only stare as Chuck walked back to stand at his sister’s side once more. The two of them joined hands, and the feel of that power in the air grew again, even stronger this time.

“We’re going to try again, my brother and I,” Amara said, giving Chuck a fond smile before bringing her gaze back to Dean. The way she had of staring at him, it left him feeling like she saw right through him. Right down to the center of him, deeper than anyone else ever had before. “But this world needs protectors with us gone. It needs people who can take care of it. Watch over it.”

“The world needs balance,” Chuck said. “Light and Dark. Me and Her. Creation and Destruction. It all comes down to balance. The Universe can’t exist without balance.”

This time it was Amara who broke free and came walking forward. She moved to stand in front of Dean. Then she stunned him completely by reaching up to cup his face and pulling him own until she could press a kiss against his forehead. Her familiar power washed over him, only it went deeper than it ever had before. Dean gasped as he felt it pour into him and wrap around him. Only, this wasn’t the dark despair that he’d felt from her before. It was dark, yeah, but it was beautiful at the same time. _Amazing._ Dean felt it all through him, and with it, a knowledge of everything around him.

Amara pulled back. Using her hold on his face, she tilted Dean’s head up so that their eyes could meet, and in that gaze Dean saw the glow of her power behind her eyes, felt it echoing inside him. “Who else would we trust with my brother’s creation, but the two people who’ve repeatedly done everything to save it?” she asked.

Behind her, the glow of angel grace seemed to fill the air, only this time it didn’t hurt, not the way that Dean was used to it doing. It didn’t blind him. He stared at it and felt his mouth drop open in awe. Caught up in it, he didn’t even register as Amara let go of him and moved to once more stand at Chuck’s side.

Then the light faded and it was just Chuck once more. Chuck, with that goofy crooked grin, and the same easy-going air about him that had set Dean at ease despite himself a few times already. “Tell Sam I’m sorry I couldn’t deliver my gift personally. I hope he understands. This world isn’t really made for two Gods. Not when one of them is too new to their power.”

There wasn’t a chance for Dean to question that. Amara and Chuck joined hands once more. “It’ll make sense, with time,” Amara said serenely. “Trust his children to help guide you guys. And try not to make our mistakes.”

With no more warning than that, Dean watched in stunned shock as the two of them slowly turned to smoke and light, twisting and twining together before rising up to the sky.

* * *

The sun was almost completely back to normal. Sam sat on the hood of the Impala and stared up at it, letting the brightness of it burn into his corneas until his eyes were watering from it. That was what he told himself, at least. It was an easy excuse to explain the tears that were threatening to drip down his face.

They’d won. That was what he tried to remind himself. They had _won_. But… why was it that winning for the world always seemed to come with such a loss for the Winchesters? Why did they always have to lose everything for the world to survive? It wasn’t fair! Over and over and _over_ again they’d given up everything they had, everything they were, just to fix the world’s problems. Sure, there was a good chunk of time that they’d been the ones to cause it. Sam accepted that, just as he accepted the punishment for it. Only this time, his mistake had gotten Dean punished.

One traitorous tear broke free and burned a path down Sam’s cheek.

He heard someone walk up to him. There was no point in bothering to turn and look. Only one of the three with him would approach him right now. Crowley and Rowena were probably already getting ready to run back to their own hidey-holes, wherever those might be. Plus, both of them knew the downsides of messing with a grieving Winchester. There was only one who was brave enough – or stupid enough, depending on how you looked at it – to even think of approaching Sam right then.

Time spent with the Winchesters had taught Castiel a lot about how to handle things. They probably weren’t the best teachers, but they were what he’d had. It meant Castiel was more well-versed in their way of doing things than pretty much anyone else out there. So when he reached Sam’s side, the seraph didn’t say anything. He simply put his hand on Sam’s shoulder and stood there beside him. A solid pillar of strength.

Sam blinked away a few of the tears that built at that gesture. He brought his own hand up, letting it lay over Castiel’s, and he finally closed his eyes against the glare of the sun.

For one quiet, shining moment, the two shared in their grief, their loss for the one they would both miss in their own ways.

And then the word decided to remind them why ‘peace’ wasn’t part of the Winchester vocabulary.

Sam didn’t see it at first. He didn’t know anything was going on until suddenly he felt Castiel’s hand tighten on his shoulder, heard his sucked in breath. That was enough to have Sam opening his eyes. What he saw when he did… it took him a long moment to realize that the light slowly brightening the sky wasn’t the sun getting brighter and brighter. It was a different sort of light. Purer. It was… that was the light of _grace_ … and it was coming right towards them.

Castiel tightened his hand on Sam as if to try and yank him away, only he wasn’t fast enough. That light filled the whole area around them and whited everything out until Sam couldn’t see anything else. Then, when it was so bright he thought he might go blind, it froze for one single heartbeat – and then it struck.

A loud gasp tore its way past Sam’s lips as the light slammed into him with all the force of a truck. It hit his chest and poured down into him, and Sam wanted to be terrified, he wanted to be _horrified_ , because _grace was pouring into him_ and, oh God, he hadn’t said yes to anyone! He hadn’t!

But this felt – it felt different. So much _more_. There was nothing terrifying about this light. Sam felt it deep down inside of him, wrapping around his soul, burning its way into him, and the only thing he could do was throw his head back and _laugh_. Sam spread his arms wide and laughed with the sheer joy of it as the light took him over and became _everything_ – as _he_ became everything. The whole world felt like it opened up around him. Sam swore he heard voices crying out, singing, calling to him, and he let the grace inside him stretch out to touch them all.

As the light slowly faded, Sam found himself kneeling on the hard ground. The world around him looked normal once again. The bright light was no longer blinding them all. But inside? Inside, everything was different.

Sam looked up with glowing eyes into the true face of someone he’d once privately considered a brother, and he smiled.

Off to the side Sam could hear a low voice murmur “Oh my word,” at the same time that someone else said a low “ _Bollocks._ ” Both of those only made Sam’s smile grow. But it was the reaction of the one in front of him that meant more than anything. It was also enough to shock Sam back to himself. Castiel stared at him with a look of reverence on his face. Then he slowly sank down until he was on his knees as well, head going down, and it was felt _wrong_. So wrong.

“Cas.” There was a resonance to Sam’s voice that had never been there before. A depth and vibrancy that echoed through the air. It all seemed so different and amazing and yet, confusing, too. Part of Sam felt like he knew what was going on, like the answer was on the tip of his tongue, only he couldn’t quite seem to reach it. All he knew for sure was that this was a grace that was millions of times more powerful than Lucifer’s had felt, and it was _his_.

Castiel’s eyes were glowing with the power of his own weakened grace. Without thinking about it, Sam reached out and touched him, brushing his fingers against Castiel’s temple. The grace inside the vessel surged up with new life. Wings made up of every shade of black snapped out on either side of the seraph. No… no, not a seraph anymore. Sam stroked his fingers up into Castiel’s hair and felt the power pour through his palm, the _rightness_ that came with it, adding more and more power until not just one pair, but _three_ pairs of wings were spread out around them.

A faint smile curled Sam’s lips. He drew his hand back and met Castiel’s stunned stare. “One last gift from your Dad,” Sam said, the words coming from that place inside of him where the light had struck – where once there’d sat only his soul, and now there was something new. Something bright. “You’ve earned it, Cas.”

“ _Samuel_.” Castiel breathed his name out like a prayer and benediction both.

The sound of a soft gasp reminded the two that they weren’t alone. When Sam turned, he found Crowley and Rowena standing side by side, both of them wide-eyed with a kind of shock Sam had never seen there before. Rowen looked as if someone had slapped her. “You…. You’re….”

“God,” Crowley finished. He wasn’t looking any better than his mother. His eyes were wide and he was practically gaping at Sam. “Bloody hell, you’re the new God.”

There was a pulse of something in the air – echoed deep inside Sam – and then another voice joined the mix. “He’s not the only one that got an upgrade.”

That voice… Sam knew that voice. He turned his head, eyes gone wide, and found the very last person he’d expected to see. The one he’d been so sure he’d finally lost for good.

Dean stood off to the side, looking better than he had in years. There was a smile on his lips, and warmth in his eyes. He carried himself like someone who had just lost millions of pounds of weight from his shoulders. He looked healthy and _alive_ – and he was glowing with a dark light that was soaked into every single inch of what was clearly now only a vessel.

As Dean had just said – Sam wasn’t the only one to get an upgrade. As Sam registered those words, and as he looked at his brother, he knew: “You’re the Darkness.”

“In the flesh, Sammy.” Dean flashed a grin his way. Hands stuffed in his pockets, he rocked a little on his heels, and _Jesus_ , that was the grin that Sam had once known, the one he hadn’t seen since _before hell._ “God and Amara decided to go start over somewhere new, but they didn’t want to leave this world unprotected. So guess who they decided get to step up to the plate.”

The rest of the world seemed to stop existing for a moment as Sam rose to his feet. He and Dean stood there facing one another: brother and brother, darkness and light. The whole balance of the universe right there house in the bodies of two hunters who had broken the world just as many times as they’d fixed it. Who had fought hard, pushed one another even harder, hurt each other far better than anyone or anything else out there could. And yet… and yet they still stood strong. Still stood together.

God and Amara had fought and the world had almost died because of it. God had locked his sister away, scared of her darkness. But Sam? Sam knew what darkness was like. He knew what it was like to have it deep down in his soul. The dark now inside of Dean was nothing that could scare Sam away. His light would help to balance it.

And Dean? Dean knew what it felt like to be considered something bright and holy. To be looked at as ‘the Righteous Man.’ He knew what it felt like to have a little brother who idolized him as if he really were a god, and how terrifying it was to be in that position and worry that you were going to screw up. He knew the kind of pressure that was, and he knew he’d do everything he could to try and lighten that load for his brother. To remind him that not everyone  was perfect, not even a new _God_. He’d be there to help Sam shoulder that burden, to help go into the dark where the light that had always made up Sam’s soul would never be able to survive.

Protector and Defender. That’s what these two brothers had always been. The power inside them now, it only helped that grow. Made it more. Together, they’d do what Amara and God had never been able to do. They’d work _together_ to protect and defend the planet, no matter what came their way. And they’d do it as a family, the way it should be.

Twin smiles broke over the brothers’ faces. Neither one was sure which one moved first, only they were there, arms wrapping around each other, and for the first time in a very long time, everything felt right with the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think, and if you want more. If you do, I can definitely do a much longer sequel to this. Though please keep in mind, I tend to be a Sam writer - Dean's not easy for me - though I'll try my best. And I'm also a huge Sabriel shipper at heart :)


End file.
